The Master Musicians Of Jajouka Spin Sufi Trance Music - African Tuesday
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Artist:
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Album:Boujeloud
I'll never forget the first time I heard the Master Musicians of Jajouka live. It was in San Francisco at the Maritime Hall. (Subarachnid Space opened! And the Extra Action Marching Band closed the show!) The venue was a typical one with a large stage and dancefloor like a high school gymnasium. It was ok, but nothing like hearing them play numerous times over 48 hours in a huge warehouse in Oakland. The group played almost non-stop for 2-3 days (I lost count eventually) - even the sound of 11 men having breakfast at one table started to sound like Sufi trance music under the influence of artsy noise bands.
Their drum-n-lire music is immediately hypnogogic and becomes hallucinatory within 15 minutes of immersion. It was 1999 and the warehouse where they were staying featured a huge open space in the middle. As a result, the building itself acted like a huge speaker - broadcasting their musical messages throughout the mixed residential/industrial neighborhood. I bet it even drifted across the estuary and could be clearly heard in Alameda. I wonder if it sounded like the End of the World in Oakland...
I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but the Master Musicians just happened to be performing in this space near sundown on 9/9/99 when Oakland began experiencing a rare phenomenon - a spectacular lightning storm that didn't produce a single drop of rain. Just lightning for 7 hours straight. The Master Musicians probably played for only 1-3 hours on this night, so hopefully they too saw and enjoyed the rare light show.
If my distorted memory serves me correctly, the group of amazing travelers played this song on the night of 9/9/99:
The Master Musicians of Joujouka are from the village of Joujouka (Jajouka) in the Ahl Srif mountain range of the southern Rif Mountains in northern Morocco. The music they play is traditional Sufi trance music, given to the original Master Musicians by Pan himself and passed down to each following generation of Masters for 1200 years now. The Master Musicians perform at the annual Boujeloud rites to Pan in Joujouka. They came to Western attention when William S. Burroughs labeled the group a "4000-year-old rock and roll band" after Brion Gyson convinced him to visit Jajouka and hear them.
By 1989, The Rolling Stones were in Morocco, recording rock n roll tunes with The Master Musicians.
Here's a tune by The Master Musicians of Joujouka that Brian Jones (The Rolling Stones) recorded:
Here's some behind-the-scenes footage of those Rolling Stones/Master Musicians sessions via BBC:
If you like what you hear, I highly recommend the albums Jajouka Black Eyes and Boujeloud.
Comments (9)
Coincidentally they are going to be playing in Seattle in Feb ... and I was thinking of making the effort to go ...
First heard them on their collaboration with Talvin Singh (whatever happened to that guy?) ....
Great post!
Oh my. Gonna have to spend some quality time with this one..Bookmarking. Your description of the ecstatic experience you had was pretty cool already, before I even played a note. Brava!
oh yeah - i totally forgot to mention that they'll be playing a string of US dates soon:
US Winter Tour 2009
FEB 06 UCLA Live - Los Angeles, CA
FEB 11 San Francisco, CA
FEB 12 San Francisco, CA
FEB 17 Seattle, WA
FEB 19 Portland Jazz Festival Portland, OR
FEB 22 Washington D.C.
FEB 23 Washington D.C.
FEB 24 Washington D.C.
FEB 25 Washington D.C.
FEB 26 New York, NY
More info:
http://www.jajouka.com/on_tour.html
I could have sworn I just pupblished a comment here, but finding it not here, I'll try again.
Apocalypse Across the Sky has been one of my Huge favorites since it came out in 1992! It has a fantastic program of percussion, strings, reedy winds and vocals like few others. The vocals really send me. These guys also have a self titled 1995 album that is good. (It has a song on it titled Brian Jones. Funny thing, when I play it on Windows Media Player, all different titles appear.)
I am Psyched to hear there is a US tour! I hope we can get to one of the DC dates!
Thanks for bringing this to Moggers now!
At Real World in 95 or 96 we had the Musicians in to record what became an album on Womad Records, a Real World sub-label. The session was the most intense experience I've ever had in a studio. The nature of Real World studios is that there's no control room and studio - it's all in one room - so we were in the middle of their sound. It was vbouncing off the walls and seemed to fill the air itself - intensely physical, very trancey, it wasn't long before I was off in space and I noticed the engineer was having a hard time staying focussed. I drove home about 2am totally spaced and still felt high an hour later. Nothing recorded - audio or video - comes anywhere close to what happens when you see them live. I imagine that in the space you describe the effect was very similar.
Jonh - you described it perfectly! i didn't write much about how the music affected me physically, but it was the same as you described. it was "intensely physical, very trancey, it wasn't long before I was off in space".... it lasted for hours and we heard them play everyday for at least 2-3 days, so i was fully in another dimension.
i'm thrilled that you share a similar experience, tho in a much more intimate and serious environment. (i was in a room full of ravers, tribal punks and Burning Man types - all experienced trippers who were experiencing an all new, natural high...) i wonder how many people in the whole world have such a story. would we all in fit into one room? perhaps. thanks for sharing yr story, Jonh!
i feel so blessed to have experienced this music, body and soul. i highly recommend it to everyone else - go see these guys live!!
Maybe your experience was better, with all the ravers around you. But yeah - one of those experiences where you feel your life is blessed with something unique.
I'm In Awe. I see that the DC dates are at the Kennedy Center. Not in the concert hall where I've been a number of times but in the Eisenhower Theater. It's part of the Arabesque Festival Feb 23 to March 15. Including exhibits, discussions, films and performances, many of which are free. Only the 25th Jajouka concert shows up on the Kennedy Center Schedule, however. The other dates beginning on feb. 22 are more informal I suppose and info might take some digging. http://kennedy-center.org/programs/festivals/08-09/arabesque/arab_events.cfm?genre=MUS
http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/festivals/08-09/arabesque/include/ArabesqueSchedule.pdf
yes Spike 1 - go! don't miss this chance. (not to mention, these guys aren't all that young. i think they must be in their 60's or 70's by now... so don't pass up any chance to experience this 1-of-a-kind music!!)